


What the Butler Saw

by devje



Category: Birds of Prey (TV)
Genre: Batgirl - Freeform, Black Canary - Freeform, F/F, The Huntress - Freeform, This was one of the gayest shows ever, Throws shade at Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devje/pseuds/devje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred has been watching over Helena and Barbara for a long time, and he’s a lot wiser than both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posted elsewhere previously, but Birds of Prey has been on my mind a lot recently because of the new interest in the Harley Quinn movie, so I’ve given this one a bit of a spit and polish. Apols if it’s not new to you.
> 
> Barbara/Helena, obvs, and set after the series finale.

Alfred Pennyworth maintained his usual impassive face as the young woman before him gave him her best puppy-dog eyes. Having known her for over a decade since she was catapulted into his life by the death of her mother, he had seen that expression too many times to give in as easily as others apparently did.

“C’mon, Alfred, you know you want to,” Helena Kyle crooned.

“Miss Helena, I can assure you that is not the case.”

“It’ll take you all of ten minutes!” The young woman bit her bottom lip and looked up at him through her long lashes. “Please, Alfred. Please!”

He looked at her sternly. “Do you honestly believe I will crumble if you plead in that manner?”

Helena shrugged, flopping into one of the kitchen chairs. “Works with most people.”

“I am not most people, and I have known you too long. I am simply immune to your charms.” It wasn’t true; he would accede to her wishes eventually, but he did enjoy the sport of making her work for it.

“Yeah, but you’re the person I love the most.”

He scoffed directly at her. “We both know that not to be true, Miss Helena.” She flashed him a momentary look of intense anger that he had dared to go there. He merely raised his eyebrow at her. “Well?”

“Second most.” She folded her arms as she let her normal flippant grin reassert itself. “And you’re, like, a very close second on a list of only two.”

“Miss Dinah?”

She sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. A list of three, but you’re still second.”

“Your father and your brother?” he prompted.

“I do not love the Caped Crusader and his totally gay sidekick.”

“That is no way to talk about your brother,” he admonished.

“He wears tights!”

“And you should not use ‘gay’ as an insult anyway, young lady.”

“I know! Hello? Only actually gay person in this household here.” She shrugged. “Only openly gay person anyway.”

He heard it then, the bitterness at her only soft target being hit. And then he truly looked at her and saw that she was having one of those days, when she struggled with who she was and how she felt, and with her frustration that those feelings were not even overtly acknowledged, never mind reciprocated. So he removed his coat and hat, and started to pin his shirtsleeves back.

There was a hint of a smile playing around Helena’s mouth. She obviously thought she had won this round. “Definitely a close second,” she mumbled.

Alfred put his butler’s apron back on and set about making the four-course meal (appetiser, entree, two desserts) which would take him a lot longer than ten minutes to put together.

 

#### Ten years ago

The first time Alfred realised that the girl he now thought of indulgently as his adoptive granddaughter was gay, she was only fifteen years old. 

At first, when he had seen her ferocious loyalty to Miss Barbara, he had assumed that it was because Helena had no-one else. After her mother’s murder, Helena Kyle had been placed in the care of Barbara Gordon, former Olympic gymnast by day, Batgirl by night, and unexpectedly close friend of Selina Kyla, AKA Catwoman. Helena’s father, Bruce Wayne, who had never known he even had a daughter, had fled the city, unable to cope with Selina Kyle being murdered before he had a chance to make amends with her. Before Selina’s body was even cold, Barbara—Batgirl—had been shot and paralysed by the Joker.

So, it was understandable that Alfred might have initially misconstrued the way that Miss Helena sat by Miss Barbara’s bedside in the hospital, day after day, night after night, neglecting her own physical and emotional needs to be with her guardian. Barbara was Helena’s whole world and he could understand that the girl would be terrified of losing her. Helena was incredibly passionate, and felt everything in extremes. She held nothing back, whether in joy or anger.

And then he came to the hospital one evening, not long before Barbara was finally due to be discharged. The physical therapy had been arduous, nine months of rehabilitating a devastating spinal cord injury. Helena had been with her every moment, never reacting to the way that Barbara lashed out at her in frustration. She constantly supported Barbara with smiles of encouragement and teasing comments that pushed her to work harder.

As he walked into the room, he found Helena asleep in a chair next to the bed. She had always been lean, but she had dropped a good ten to fifteen pounds that she could barely afford to lose. Even napping, her face was pinched and gaunt; of the two women, the patient in the bed had the better pallor.

Waking Helena gently, Alfred asked quietly, “And how are we today?”

Nodding with her head to step outside, so as not to disrupt Barbara’s sleep, Helena mumbled, “Not so good.” She sighed. “She wants to give up, Alfred. On life. On life with me.” 

The hospital room had a large glass window to the corridor, and, as they exited, Helena pulled back the curtain slightly, so that she would still be able to see Barbara once they were outside. His face may not have shown it—his restraint was too ingrained to give into open displays of affection easily—but his heart broke for the young woman in front of him. To lose her mother and to have her guardian contemplate suicide, as he knew Miss Barbara had done on several occasions, was more than a girl Helena’s age should have to bear. 

“She will feel differently tomorrow,” he assured her.

“I don’t think she wants to come home.” Unshed tears welled behind Helena’s eyes. “At least, I don’t think she wants to come home to me.” She leaned her head against the window and stared at the sleeping Barbara.

Alfred laid a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Helena, she loves you very much and she needs you, even if she cannot see that just now. But you must know that being here all day, every day, is wearing you down. You must look to your own health and welfare. Or at least let me look to them. Please, come back to the Clocktower with me.” He tried what he thought would be his best approach. “For Miss Barbara’s sake, you need to be strong enough to care for her when she returns.”

“No.” A single word, spoken with quiet ferocity.

“Miss Helena,” he pleaded.

She turned around and pulled herself to her full height. For a slight young woman, even a meta-human with abilities she was still uncovering and refining, she could be incredibly imposing. “I love her, Alfred, and I will not leave her, so please do not ask me to.” She looked over her shoulder into the hospital room. “She might want to leave me, but I will never, ever leave her.”

He saw the way that Helena’s eyes raked over Barbara’s sleeping form and knew that he had seen that look before. His master, Bruce Wayne, had looked at Helena’s mother, Selina Kyle, with the same intensity and desperation. 

Helena’s gaze was that of a lover. 

He almost gasped at the thought. Not because he disapproved—he would never tell her to her face, but he rather hoped that Helena understood he would always love her unconditionally—but because Helena Kyle was even more like her father than she knew. Bruce Wayne had loved only once in his life, so deeply that it almost tore his soul apart, ruining him for any other relationships. 

Just seeing Helena’s face, Alfred knew that she felt the same for Barbara as her father had for her mother. It was no teenage crush; the young girl was helplessly in love. He could only hope that Miss Barbara would realise this some day soon and, if necessary, let her down as gently as possible. Somehow, he doubted that day would come, and his heart ached anew for Helena.

 

#### Seven years ago

“I am a grown woman, Barbara!” Helena shouted. “Why the hell can’t you ever see that?” The sound of a door slamming immediately followed.

Alfred mentally counted to five, expecting Barbara Gordon to appear in the kitchen. Almost on cue, she rolled her wheelchair down the ramp from the living area, her face contorted with confusion.

“Why does she hate me so?” she wailed. “What am I doing wrong?”

Alfred sighed. As he had feared, Miss Barbara remained wantonly blind to the fact that Helena’s problems were not due to hatred, but rather the deep, passionate love which she would never express, but which she was incapable of hiding from everyone else but Barbara. 

Their latest contretemps was over Helena’s dropping out of school. While he did not witness the argument first hand, he heard every word reverberating around the Clocktower. As ever, Miss Barbara insisted that she knew best.

“She is just testing your limits, Miss Barbara,” he said. “You know that she cares deeply what you think of her.”

“If she cared, she would listen to me.”

Alfred was glad that he had his back to the younger woman so that she didn’t see him roll his eyes. “She listens, but she also knows her own mind. She is an adult.” 

In many ways, Helena was old beyond her years. She had been robbed of her childhood by tragedy and, when most eighteen-year-olds were out at Prom or sneaking into clubs, Helena was either training or patrolling the streets. But in other ways, she was a needy child, hungry for love and acceptance from the one person who mattered most to her.

“An adult wouldn’t stay out all night, partying with God only knows what kinds of boys, without letting her family know where she is. ”

On the nights when Helena disappeared, Barbara Gordon chose to believe that her young ward was out pursuing her hormonal urges. Alfred, however, witnessed Helena coming home at dawn, her face drawn and tight in the same way it had been that day at the hospital. While Barbara suspected a lover, Alfred knew that Helena chased across the rooftops of New Gotham, fleeing Barbara’s company whenever her feelings ran too high.

“She does all this to provoke me!” Barbara complained. 

“Yes, she does,” he agreed. Helena’s behaviour was always designed to provoke a reaction: in the absence of love or at least jealousy, Helena drank in Barbara’s disappointment as proof of some emotion.

“She can’t even control herself in front of me. She was so angry that her eyes augmented. It’s happening more and more these days. It’s almost like she’s getting worse at it, rather than better. If she can’t control that in front of me, how can she control it when it’s important? How can I protect her if she can’t even protect herself?”

Alfred shook his head. Helena’s eyes did not take on their golden tint because of anger. Although he almost blushed at the thought, he knew that it was sexual desire that caused her primal side to assert itself.

“Yet, you rise to her provocation every time.” He put down the chopping knife and asked kindly, “Have you considered just listening to her and giving her a chance to explain properly?”

Barbara scoffed. “What’s to explain? She needs to finish school. It’s not negotiable.”

Alfred knew that he shouldn’t betray Helena’s confidence, but it was clear that Barbara was never going to hear what the young woman was trying to say. “She is bored in school, Miss Barbara. It does not challenge her. I believe that she would rather be taught by you and take her GED.” He didn’t add that Helena also believed that she would never live long enough to put anything she learned in school to any use but that, with Barbara’s help, she might keep her wits about her long enough to make a difference.

“Oh.” Barbara furrowed her brow. “Well, why didn’t she say that?”

Alfred smiled. “Did you let her?”

Barbara’s head slumped to the table, resting on her hands. “Why is raising a child so hard?”

“Because she is not a child, and she hasn’t been for a long time. She just wants you to accept that and meet her as an equal.”

“But I’m the parent in this situation.”

“No, you’re not. Selina Kyle raised a perfectly wonderful young woman, who is bright, intelligent, and speaks three languages. Our job has been rounding off the edges to help her fulfil her, well, destiny, for want of a better expression.” He felt the need to prod Barbara further. “She neither needs nor wants a second mother. She needs a friend and a confidante who will support and challenge her, the way she does you.” He shook his head. “And I have said enough. It is not my place.”

Barbara looked up and extended her hand to Alfred, squeezing it lightly. “You’re our family, too, Alfred. I couldn’t have done this without you. And I do value your opinion. She just makes me so mad that I cannot see or think straight.”

“Indeed.” He pursed his lips in amusement at Barbara’s choice of words. Miss Helena did not ‘think straight’ around Barbara, either.

Withdrawing from Barbara’s hand, he looked up at the doorway, where a recalcitrant Helena was waiting patiently, biting her lip. The longing with which she always regarded Barbara was there on her face, but he could also read her worry that she might have gone too far this time. Alfred tried to convey with his eyes that everything would be all right.

Barbara stiffened, as she felt Helena’s gaze on her, and she settled her face into a mask of calm as she turned around. Helena dashed to her side, dropping to her knees in front of Barbara and begging forgiveness, her eyes heavy and pained.

“God, I’m so sorry, Barbara. I don’t wanna fight about this. All I want to do is make you proud of me, you know. You’re right. I’ll go back and finish out the school year, graduate for you. I don’t want to be a failure.” She buried her face in Barbara’s lap, unable to maintain eye contact.

Barbara looked at Alfred, aghast. Helena had not sought out physical comfort like this since the months after Barbara had left the hospital, when it was not uncommon for the two of them to share a bed, helping to chase each other’s demons away. As Helena’s love for Barbara had matured, she had tried to keep an appropriate physical distance to maintain her sanity against the strength of her overwhelming need.

Again, Alfred found himself communicating with his eyes that everything would be okay, this time to the uncertain woman in the wheelchair. 

Barbara tentatively reached down to run her fingers through Helena’s short, almost spiky hair, muttering soothing noises and half-words. As Helena let out a soft purr, so quietly that Alfred wasn’t even sure that Barbara heard it, he noticed that Barbara herself seemed at peace for the first time in many months. 

He also noted the way she tenderly cradled Helena’s head and stroked the fine hairs at the back of her neck. The action was not, no matter what Barbara Gordon wanted to tell herself, motherly in any way. The husky tone with which she said, “You could never be a failure to me, my beautiful, lovely girl,” confirmed that she might finally be seeing Helena as a woman, not a child.

 

#### Four years ago

“You think she’ll approve?” Helena asked, biting her lip. 

It was Helena’s twenty-first birthday and she had decided the previous week that she could no longer sit around all day, living off her inheritance, hoping that Barbara would start to take her seriously. A person who wanted to be taken seriously had to take themselves seriously. And that meant moving out, getting a job, and proving that, like Barbara, she could hold down a regular life as well as her second career as a crime fighter.

Alfred looked at her hopeful face and couldn’t bring himself to say what was really on his mind: namely, that Helena’s mentor would most assuredly not approve of having to share her protégé with the rest of the world, but that she would pretend to, just so that she didn’t have to think about what her gut feelings actually meant.

“I think,” he said, “that it shows a great maturity and that anyone should be proud of you for demonstrating your independence.”

Helena beamed under his praise, but he knew that only Miss Barbara’s opinion would truly matter. 

He was, in fact, very proud of the woman that Helena had become. She was kind and thoughtful, brave and loyal, trustworthy almost to a fault. She would, without a doubt, lay down her life to protect an innocent. For Barbara, there was no limit to the sacrifices Helena would be prepared to make, had already made. That she tried to hide all of this under a veneer of amused cynicism did not alter the truth. While Barbara bemoaned the fact that Helena refused to wear an actual mask out on the street when she was patrolling as The Huntress, she still didn’t see that the young woman wore a mask with her every day. 

Oh, Helena acted both tough and flippant, with her often-scandalous leather outfits, and her incorrigible flirting with everyone around her, but she was still the quiet, intense girl who longed for Barbara to do nothing more than love her.

“Besides,” Helena joked, already affixing that metaphorical mask to steel herself against Barbara’s expected disappointment, “getting a place of my own will allow me to get a little something-something without having to do the walk of shame in here every morning, worrying that you’ll fink me out to the warden.”

Alfred did not challenge her, even though he did not believe any of Helena’s claims about her romantic conquests.

As Barbara Gordon rolled her wheelchair into the kitchen, Alfred turned away from Helena, giving her a supportive nod, and started preparing Helena’s snack. 

“The birthday girl has requested an afternoon snack of chocolate chip pancakes, Miss Barbara. May I interest you in some?”

“Someone’s having a birthday?” Barbara smirked, as she manoeuvred herself next to Helena. “That must be why I found these on the doorstep when I came home from school.” She reached behind herself and pulled out a card and a gift box, sliding them across the table. Alfred didn’t miss that Helena’s hand paused above the card and present, waiting for Barbara’s approval.

“For me?”

“Unless you know someone else who’s having a birthday today.” Barbara’s eyes had softened, but she seemed to be just as nervous as Helena.

With her usual enthusiasm, Helena ripped open the card, which featured a picture of a cat wearing a birthday hat and a humorous message about everything now being legal. She grinned and propped it on the kitchen table. More carefully, she peeled back the wrapping paper from the gift box. She looked into Barbara’s eyes before she opened it, searching for something. Barbara blushed and looked away.

“Go on, open it,” she urged.

Helena lifted the lid off the box and her whole face lit up as she saw that it was a beautiful necklace and earring set, crafted in silver and with dark sapphires that matched the almost violet colour of Helena’s eyes.

“God, Barbara, they’re so beautiful.” She picked up the necklace and let the light catch on the gemstone, staring at it in wonder and delight.

“And, even better than that, they’re a communication system,” Barbara said.

As Helena’s face turned from sheer joy to suspicious caution, Alfred wanted to slap both his own forehead and the back of Barbara’s head. Had she really turned a beautiful gift into office supplies?

“What?” Helena asked.

“The earrings have speakers in them and your meta-enhanced hearing will be able to pick up any sound. Humans won’t hear anything, though, even if they’re right up close to you. The pendant,” Barbara leaned forward and traced its outline, “hides a transmitter. It’ll send the signal back here. I’ll be able to talk to you while you’re out on sweeps from now on.” Barbara was so pleased with her own ingenuity that she didn’t even notice that Helena looked like she had been sucker-punched.

“Thoughtful and practical,” Helena commented flatly. She glanced over to Alfred and he gave a minute shake of his head. “They’re lovely, Barbara. Thank you.” She reached out and placed her hand over Barbara’s. “I’d better go get changed for dinner.” She picked up her card and gift box and stood up from the table.

“What about your pancakes?” Barbara called after her. Helena didn’t turn or reply. 

Alfred hadn’t needed to ask, because he already knew that Miss Helena had lost her appetite. 

“Do you think she’ll like her other surprise?” Barbara asked once Helena was out of earshot. She had arranged for Dick Grayson, Helena’s adoptive brother, to meet them at the restaurant.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it as much as the gift,” he deadpanned. Dick had been Barbara’s occasional lover in the past and jealousy ate away at Helena whenever he was around. Again, it was not Alfred’s place to say that. “She wants to speak to you anyway.”

“What about?” Barbara’s interest was piqued.

“She should tell you herself.”

“I’ll go speak to her now, then.”

How could anyone be so blind as to the emotional chaos that they caused, Alfred wondered. “Oh, I don’t think you should disturb her when she’s dressing, Miss Barbara. You know how she hates anything to come between her and fashion. I am sure she will tell you in her own time.”

“Well, I’ll go get ready for this evening as well.”

“Very good, Miss Barbara.”

+

Alfred was waiting with a tray of drinks when the three members of the birthday party returned from Helena’s favourite Italian restaurant. Miss Barbara and Master Dick were first to enter the living space. Dick was pushing Barbara’s wheelchair, something that she very rarely allowed anyone else to do for her. Helena trailed behind, her face dark and a little sad.

“I think that would be a marvellous idea,” Barbara was saying. The look on Helena’s face indicated that she did not agree with whatever had been suggested.

“Champagne?” Alfred said.

“You’re a good man, Alfred,” Dick said, helping himself to two glasses for himself and Barbara. He looked handsome in a dark grey suit with a silver silk tie, Alfred had to admit.

The women were equally well-turned-out. Barbara was wearing her favourite outfit, a long dark green dress, while Helena had chosen a black cocktail dress which seemed to both move sinuously against her and yet cling to her at the same time. She was not, however, wearing her new jewellery. Alfred recognised her necklace and earrings as having belonged to her mother.

“Any chance of something a little stronger, Alfred?” Helena asked, her eyes downcast, so that she did not have to watch Dick flirting shamelessly and aggressively with Barbara.

“Of course, Miss Helena.” He was not surprised when she followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table. It seemed like every important conversation they ever had took place in there. “What would you like to drink?”

“Tequila, straight up. Leave the bottle.” She phrased it as a joke, but he doubted the humour in the statement. He placed both bottle and glass in front of her. “Don’t hover, Alfred. Sit with me and have a birthday drink.”

“Perhaps a small sherry.” He poured her first shot and watched as she tossed it back. He fixed himself a drink and then sat next to her, sipping at his drink while he waited for her to speak.

“Twenty-one, huh?” she said, staring into her glass as she poured herself another. “Best years of my life, right?”

“So they say.” She looked miserable and he doubted that her birthday meal had gone as she would have liked. 

“You know, don’t you, Alfred?”

“Know what, Miss Helena?” He knew a great many things, and didn’t want to guess the wrong one.

“That I’m gay.”

“Yes, I do.” He raised his hand to touch her shoulder, but pulled it back. Being gay was not something for which she needed comfort.

She was still staring pointedly at her glass. “You’ve never said anything.”

“I wasn’t aware that it required a comment.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“It is who you are, and I happen to think you are quite splendid.”

“And the rest?” Helena looked straight at him. “Her, how I feel, everything?”

“I know.” He finally placed a hand on her forearm. That was something for which she did need comfort. “One cannot help what the heart wants, Miss.”

Helena evaded his touch and took another drink. “She wants him, my so-called brother.”

“They have been friends a very long time, Miss Helena.”

“Yeah, friends.” She threw back another shot of tequila, her fourth in as many minutes. With her meta abilities, he knew that she could finish off the entire bottle and barely feel even a buzz. “He wants more than that. So does she.” She poured another drink, filled it so close to the brim that she spilled some as she lifted it to her lips. “I might as well not have been there.”

“She loves you very much.” It was true, even if Miss Barbara couldn’t show it in a way that Helena could understand. 

“As a child, a partner in crime fighting. I don’t even think she sees me as a friend, just a junior employee.”

“Did you tell her about your new job?” he asked, knowing that there was nothing he could say to refute the allegation.

“Nah. There was never a good moment.” Yet another drink passed her lips. “The Bat kids were too busy telling me all about the good old days.”

Barbara and Dick entered the kitchen, talking and laughing.

“What’s going on in here?” Barbara asked. Her voice was a little slurred, the wine with dinner and the champagne thereafter starting to affect her.

Helena’s face immediately changed, a wide, lascivious grin appearing to chase away the brooding sadness. She would never let Barbara see her hurt.

“I was trying to persuade Alfred to do body shots with me, but he says lime and salt make him gag.” She spun around to stare at Barbara in clear challenge. The look on her eyes was definitely sexual. “What about you, Babs? You up for a few body shots?” Helena motioned to her own body with her hands. “All this could be yours.”

Barbara’s face showed her clear shock at the suggestion and, as she paused before answering, a little extra colour suffused her cheeks and she unconsciously mirrored Helena’s gesture of biting her lower lip. Alfred couldn’t help but think that she was mentally picturing what such an action would entail.

“More champagne, I think!” she announced, a little too brightly after a pause that was just a little too long.

“Of course, Miss Barbara,” Alfred replied, rising from his seat and clearing away his own drink.

“I’m fine with my tequila, thanks.” Helena carelessly poured another shot, liquid spilling onto the table. As she finished it, she slammed the glass down, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes never left Barbara’s and she twisted her mouth into a sardonic smile. “You’re sure I can’t tempt you?”

“I think champagne’s more Barbara’s style,” Dick said, his light tone intended to lessen the sudden tension in the room.

Helena didn’t even acknowledge that he had spoken. “Cat got your tongue, Barbara?”

“Helena,” she murmured in a warning tone.

“That’s not an answer. You don’t wanna play with me? Not even on my birthday? Too old for a little fun, Red?”

Everyone knew that Barbara Gordon rarely backed down from a challenge. She picked up the shot glass from the table and held it out towards Helena. “Sure, I’ll drink with you.”

Helena nodded, her grin growing a little more easy. She reached to the centre of the table for the salt cellar. “Where’d you want the salt?”

Barbara didn’t break eye contact with Helena. She merely licked the back of her own hand and took the salt from Helena, sprinkling it on the wet skin. 

Raising the shot glass, she toasted, “Happy Birthday, Helena.” Then she licked her hand slowly and threw back the tequila. With a shiver, she replaced the glass on the table. 

All Helena said was, “You forgot the lime.”

Barbara shrugged. “Alfred?”

He sighed. He could not see a good end to this stand-off, but he fetched a lime from the refrigerator and chopped it into wedges. No-one spoke for the minute or so it took for him to prepare the fruit and put it on a plate. Helena poured another shot as he placed the plate on the table. 

Barbara reached out and grabbed Helena’s wrist. Pulling the hand to her mouth, Barbara licked the back of Helena’s hand and sprinkled salt on it.

From the tension in Helena’s shoulders, Alfred could tell that she was struggling not to let the desire cause her eyes to turn golden. He glanced over at Dick, trying to read the situation from his face. If anything, though, Dick was trying not to watch, taking great interest in his own champagne.

Slowly, Barbara licked the salt from Helena’s hand, downed her shot and then picked up a slice of lime, biting into the fruit. Only when she dropped it back on the plate did she let go of Helena’s wrist.

“Satisfied?”

“I never knew you had it in you,” Helena said. 

Another long pause followed in which it felt like everyone in the room was holding their breath, both men watching the women stare each other down. 

Finally, Helena stepped back and announced, “I think might go to a club, now that it’s finally legal.” She smiled condescendingly at Dick. “Think you can take care of things without me?”

“I’m sure I can.” Dick was obviously puzzled as to exactly what she meant. Alfred wasn’t sure either.

“Don’t wait up,” she said to Barbara. “I’ll stay at my place.” She leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Barbara’s cheek which, at least to Alfred, lasted a little longer than usual. “Thanks for a great birthday, Barbara.”

It was only after the unmistakeable sound of the elevator doors closing was heard that Barbara finally said, “Wait. She has her own place?”


	2. Chapter 2

#### Three years ago

There had been a change in the tides, perhaps not in the affairs of men, but definitely in the day-to-day emotional currents of the Clocktower.

After Helena moved out, Dick Grayson reappeared in Barbara’s life in an on-off capacity. It was never stated—and neither Alfred nor Helena ever asked—but they assumed that he was Barbara’s lover once more. There were no dates, but Barbara visited him in Bludhaven a few times, and Dick was seen leaving the Clocktower in the wee small hours while in New Gotham on business. Alfred had not witnessed this himself; Helena informed him in her succinct fashion (‘Booty call last night’). It confirmed Alfred’s suspicions that Helena spent many nights on the rooftops nearby, watching over Barbara. He also knew that she snuck into Barbara’s room on occasion. He was, after all, the one who cleaned the floors and he recognised muddy boot prints when he saw them. 

Helena also ramped up her flirting with everyone, but especially Barbara. Everything Barbara said, in person or over the new comms system (which Helena hated on principle), was responded to with innuendo. During Barbara’s physical therapy, which Helena had been providing since the day she had been discharged from hospital, Helena challenged her with a series of guttural moans and grunts. 

“You like that, don’t you, Barbara?” she would ask.

“No-one else will ever make you feel this good,” she would say, letting her fingers drift up Barbara’s thigh. 

Barbara never responded. Alfred suspected she didn’t know how. But from his few observations of Barbara’s physical responses, which Helena could read so much better than he could, Helena was not wrong in her boldly-stated assumptions. Her paralysis might prevent her from actually feeling Helena’s hands on her, but Barbara’s eyes and imagination seemed to be working just fine.

And it obviously bothered Barbara when Helena would flirt with the beat cops and detectives while out on business. Despite her own affair with Dick Grayson, Barbara’s jealousy at Helena’s implied sexual relationships was not well-concealed. Alfred had no doubt that she rationalised it as something like parental concern, but he could see the pain on her face as she overhead Helena’s voice dripping with promise and seduction. 

Helena still treated the Clocktower as her home. She ate at least three meals a day there, although for Helena three meals could constitute an afternoon snack. Her old room was still full of her clothes. She did most of her sleeping on the couch during the day while Barbara was teaching. 

Alfred visited Helena’s apartment above the Dark Horse bar once a week to keep the mess to a minimum. She had never decorated, never added any personal touches. There was barely any furniture. Mostly, his cleaning consisted of removing fast food wrappers and liquor bottles, and picking up items of women’s clothing that he knew were not Helena’s. To his knowledge, no-one had ever returned for their items. They remained folded and tucked away in cardboard boxes on the floor of one of the built-in closets. 

He was in the middle of one such visit when there was a knock at the door. Frowning to himself, he answered it, and was surprised to find Miss Barbara on the other side of the door.

“I’m afraid Miss Helena is not here, Miss Barbara,” he informed her as he opened the door fully to let her inside. 

Barbara was staring open-mouthed at the item in Alfred’s hands. Too late, he realised that he was holding a pink cardigan sweater, one of several items he had recovered that week. Barbara looked at the sweater and then to Helena’s bed, which dominated the loft-style apartment. The sheets were pulled off the bed in a manner which implied vigorous sexual activity.

“Ah, I thought I might—” Barbara blushed and looked at her lap. In a small voice, she asked, “Is she seeing someone? She never talks to me about anything important any more.”

“I very much doubt she’s seeing anyone,” he stated.

“But, that.” Barbara pointed to the garment in his hands.

It was a pink sweater. There wasn’t a chance that he could persuade anyone, much less Miss Barbara, that it belonged to Helena. 

“I believe it may have been left behind inadvertently.”

“Oh.” 

He could see Barbara’s mind working, piecing together the information she had. 

“May I get you a cup of tea?” he said, putting the garment down on the back of the couch. There was never any real food in the apartment, but he did keep it stocked with tea, coffee and Pop-Tarts.

“What? Oh, no. I mean, no, thank you.” Her brows were knotted together. “So she sleeps with women as well?”

“I don’t think I—”

“No. No, of course. I shouldn’t have asked.” Barbara looked annoyed with herself.

“Perhaps if you were to speak to Miss Helena?”

“It never occurred to me that—” She stopped herself. Looking around the spartan apartment, she shrugged. “Well, if she’s not here, I should go. I just, I miss her, that’s all.”

“Why not wait for her? I’m sure she’ll return soon.” Helena was usually in bed or lounging around watching TV when he visited, so it had been a surprise to find the apartment empty.

“I really shouldn’t. I’m not sure that she—”

“Not sure that I’d what?” Helena interrupted, letting herself in through the window to the fire escape.

“I, uh, didn’t know that you’d want me to be here.” Barbara’s hand reached to the bridge of her nose to adjust her reading glasses, a nervous tick that she had. Only she wasn’t wearing her reading glasses, so she ended up having to rub her forehead instead.

“I think I should leave,” Alfred interjected.

Helena’s head swung round in his direction. “No, you stay. I only went out to get these,” Helena held up a box of Swiss chocolates, Alfred’s favourites, “so we had something to eat with our tea. We’re still having tea, aren’t we, Alfred?”

He bowed his head. “Of course, Miss Helena.”

“Then I should be the one to leave,” Barbara said.

Helena walked slowly and deliberately towards her. “Why? Don’t you like tea and chocolates?”

“I, uh, well, I wasn’t invited,” Barbara stammered, trying and failing not to look at either the bed or the pink sweater on the back of the couch.

Helena noted the line of Barbara’s sight and smiled. “My apologies. Would you like to join us for tea and chocolates, Barbara?” There was a menace in the tone and Alfred wondered what was going through Miss Helena’s mind.

“That.. I, uh… Yes.”

“Lovely.” She gave Barbara a curt nod of her head. “I’m just going to have a shower and I’ll be right back. Please, make yourself at home while I’m gone.” She walked towards Alfred and picked up the sweater. “I take it this just goes with the others?” She smirked at him. Neither of them had to look at Barbara to know that her curiosity had just kicked into overdrive.

“Yes, Miss Helena,” he sighed. She made him sigh a lot. And still, he loved her. She was hard not to love.

When she returned some ten minutes later—a notably short time for someone who thought showers should last at least an hour—Alfred had made tea. He had looked for a plate to arrange the chocolates on, but the apartment contained only cups and bowls. There wasn’t even a saucer he could use. He had been forced to leave them in their box, and the lack of presentation rankled. 

Helena was wearing track pants and one of her seemingly never-ending supply of t-shirts which were both too short and too tight for decency’s sake. With her hair all mussed from being towel-dried and her lack of make-up, she looked like a young girl again—a young girl with a very obvious hickey on her shoulder blade, just peeking out from the neckline of her t-shirt. Barbara was staring at that mark with a look of bewilderment.

“So, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Helena asked, picking up a chocolate and placing it between her lips. The way she traced her tongue over the sweet was almost sinful. Alfred had to suppress a smile at both her obviousness and Miss Barbara’s unconscious reaction to it as her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

“You haven’t been by much in the last few weeks.” 

“Busy.” Helena shrugged and sat down opposite her. “Been pulling double shifts downstairs.”

“Is that all?” Barbara toyed with her mug of tea.

“What else could there be?”

“If you’re seeing someone, Helena, I would hope that you feel you could tell me that.”

Helena glanced sideways at Alfred and smirked at him before chuckling at Barbara. “I’m not seeing anyone. I don’t date.”

“Oh.” Barbara flushed an even deeper red. “Well, it’s not for me to pry, obviously.”

“What is it you really want to ask, Barbara?” Helena drew her knee up to her chest, her bare foot resting on the edge of the chair. Barbara’s head dropped, unwilling to speak. “Okay, how about I make it easy on both of us?” She picked up her own mug and took a drink of her tea. “I’m gay, Barbara. That means I do not sleep with men because I like women. A lot. I like the way they look and the way they smell. I like their softness and the way they feel and, oh, how I love the way they taste.” For emphasis, she licked her fingers clean of chocolate.

The silence stretched out. Alfred watched his two charges, wondering which one of them would speak first. Miss Barbara would want time to process, while Miss Helena would want an immediate and honest response.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Barbara finally asked.

“Why didn’t you ask?” Helena shrugged and inclined her head towards Alfred. “He didn’t even have to ask. He just knew.”

“You did?” Barbara lifted her head and there was pain in her green eyes. Alfred gave her a nod to confirm what Helena had said. “How long?”

Helena snorted. “How long have I been gay or how long has he known?”

It was obvious the women needed to talk in private, so Alfred said, “Perhaps it would be best if I—”

“Stay,” Helena interrupted, her tone almost pleading. She reached out for him, resting her hand on his arm. “I’ve always been gay. And he’s always known.”

“But what about all those men?”

Helena raised an eyebrow. “What men?”

“When you don’t come back from sweeps. I’ve heard you.” She was referring to the flirting she heard over the comms, and the admission looked hard for her.

“That’s you taking two and two and making six or seven, Red. If you’d have asked me, I’d have told you that it’s all a bit of harmless fun. Sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to use a little of what God gave you to get what you need. Maybe not very modern or PC, but effective.”

“So, you haven’t?”

“What? Slept with half of Gotham PD? No, but thanks for thinking I’m a slut.”

“I really must go,” Barbara announced suddenly, reversing her chair from the table and turning it in the direction of the door.

“Of course,” Helena agreed sadly.

“Will you still come by for training tomorrow?” Barbara asked, her back to both of them.

“Bright and early.”

Without another word, Barbara left the apartment. 

Helena turned to Alfred and laughed, a wry, unhappy noise. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I thought that went fabulously.”

 

#### Two years ago

“Kid, I am going to kick your ass so hard, you won’t sit down for a week,” Helena taunted, dancing away from the girl in front of her like a boxer. Her taped hands ghosted punches in Dinah’s direction.

“Stop calling me Kid!” Dinah responded, her fists balled at her side while she tried to concentrate her telekinetic abilities in Helena’s direction. The young meta-human, the latest stray to be co-opted by the Wayne-Gordon family, was a touch telepath with a level of mental ability and stability of which Helena could only dream.

Alfred regarded them both with amusement. Miss Dinah too easily allowed herself to be distracted by Miss Helena’s teasing. It was why she had yet to win a sparring match against her older partner.

Dinah’s unofficial adoption had, however, brought a sort of peace to the Clocktower. She was a joint project on which Miss Helena and Miss Barbara could work together as a team, easing the tension between them which had never really let up since the ill-fated twenty-first birthday party. Her presence even allowed Helena to ignore—or at least not focus on—the fact that Barbara was now in a serious relationship with Wade Brixton, the guidance teacher at New Gotham High School. He was a handsome, earnest man who obviously cared for Barbara, and, as such, was probably more of a threat in Helena’s mind than Master Dick had ever been.

Just as Dinah’s attention was caught by Barbara entering the training room, Helena took the opportunity to launch a roundhouse kick at her head. Dinah’s hand shot out, as her mind tried to block the blow before it landed. She never saw the acrobatic leap or the second kick coming, and Helena’s bare foot connected with the side of her head, knocking her from her feet.

“Helena!” Barbara exclaimed, glaring. “How could you?”

“How’s she ever going to learn if I don’t teach her?” Helena rolled her neck, dancing from foot to foot and shaking the tension out of her shoulders, her hands twitching restlessly. “You think the Joker’s gonna come at us with sponges or feathers? Surely you remember that he comes with guns, and those bullets hurt a helluva lot more than my foot.” It was a low blow, referring to Barbara’s shooting and subsequent paralysis, but it was par for the course in the constant point-scoring the two women seemed to be hell-bent on these days.

Alfred opened the medical cabinet which was kept stocked for just such occurrences and extracted some antiseptic cream. With meta-healing, there would be no trace of the small cut above Dinah’s eyebrow within a matter of hours, but it was always best to be on the safe side. He knelt before her and urged her into a seated position so that he could treat the wound.

“Not every fight has to be to the death, Helena,” Barbara said.

“And not every session can be with the training wheels on.”

“How could you be so reckless? You could’ve really hurt her!”

Helena scowled as she started to pull the tape from her knuckles and looked over at Dinah for support.

“I’m not hurt,” Dinah protested, upset that her two mentors were fighting again. Alfred placed a hand on her shoulder, shushing her. It might be hard for the girl to stay out of it, but this was how things were and would probably always be. There had been many versions of this fight, and it was never about what it appeared to be on the surface. It was always about the basic dynamic of Barbara and Helena: Barbara’s need to be in control and Helena’s need for Barbara’s love and acceptance.

“Why can’t you ever trust me, Barbara? I know what I’m doing. I am good at this shit.” She pulled the last of the fighter’s tape from her hands and wadded it into a ball. Gracefully, like Jordan hitting a three-pointer, she took a jump shot towards the waste bin in the corner. Even Dinah chuckled at Helena’s obvious glee at making the shot.

“This is not about trust.”

“Bullshit! It is always about trust. You just don’t like it when I don’t play the game by your rules. Well, guess what? I don’t like your rules. And, in this case, they’re just wrong.”

Barbara’s hands shot up in frustration. “When have you ever played by my rules?”

Helena glanced in Alfred and Dinah’s direction, lowering her voice and answering steadily, “I play by your rules every day, Red.”

“Don’t.” Barbara also looked over at them, no doubt trying to ascertain if they had picked up on Helena’s undertone. He couldn’t speak for Miss Dinah, but Alfred had a fair notion of what wasn’t being said.

Helena folded her arms and stood her ground. “Then admit that I’m right.”

“No.”

“No, you don’t think I’m right or, no, you won’t admit it?”

“Both.”

“It can’t be both. If you don’t think I’m right, then there’s nothing to admit; therefore, you must think I’m right and won’t admit it.” Helena looked inordinately pleased with her logic.

“She’s hurt!”

“No, she’s not. We’re meta. That was barely a love tap. If she can’t block me, she’s not ready to be out there.”

“I’m honestly not hurt,” Dinah said, quietly enough that only Alfred heard her.

“She’ll never be out there if you break her neck,” Barbara said.

“Jesus! Why do I always have to be wrong? Can you not let me have this one thing? Is it that important for you to be right about everything?”

Barbara’s face crumpled. “Is that what you really think?”

“You don’t approve of my clothes, my attitude, my job, where I live, who I sleep with, how I train, my lack of discipline. Go on, name one thing about me you actually like, Red, because I sure as shit can’t think of anything except maybe—” She stopped as Barbara wheeled away and positioned herself in the corner of the room, her back to everyone.

Helena bounced on her toes, staring up at the ceiling, as if seeking divine inspiration. It didn’t seem to be forthcoming. 

She moved over to Dinah and Alfred, dropping to a crouch, one knee on the floor. “Alfred, can you take Dinah and get her some ice-cream or something?”

“Ice-cream?” Dinah muttered. “Do I get a dolly and a balloon, too?”

“Kid, I like ice-cream, and I’m more adult than you’ll ever be. This is my way of asking you nicely to give us some space.” Very deliberately, Helena placed her hand on Dinah’s forearm, staring evenly at the younger woman.

She was passing a message to Dinah telepathically, allowing her inside her mind, Alfred realised. And from the younger woman’s gasp, it was something shocking. Helena nodded at Dinah solemnly and inclined her head towards the living area. 

“Come on, Alfred. Let’s go,” Dinah said, picking herself up off the floor.

As the three of them stood, Alfred was shocked to see Dinah pull Helena into a quick, tight hug, which Helena not only tolerated, but returned gladly.

“Thanks, Big D. We’ll talk later about…”

“We don’t have to.”

“I know. We will anyway.” Helena stepped back from the embrace and smiled weakly at Alfred. He peered into her eyes, trying to read her. She looked over her shoulder to Barbara with her usual mix of longing, hope and trepidation, then back at him. The brief nod she gave assured him that she would be okay.

A guiding hand at Dinah’s back, he led her through to the kitchen. He did not give into his curiosity by looking back. If the fight were to continue, half of the block would hear it soon enough. If not, well, they’d hear that soon enough, too.

There was no conversation as he prepared a bowl of vanilla ice-cream and retrieved chocolate sauce from the pantry. He placed both in front of the young girl and waited as her mind ticked over. She had been with them for such a short time, but already she had picked up some mannerisms from each of her mentors. Her current thoughtful look was pure Barbara Gordon. 

“So, how long has Helena been in love with Barbara?” Dinah asked. 

Alfred smiled to himself. “What did she show you, if I might ask?”

“It was weird. It wasn’t so much that she showed me anything specific, more that I could feel what she felt. And what she felt was, uh, kinda overwhelming.”

“Miss Helena is a very passionate young woman.”

“Yeah, that bit I got.” Dinah winced with embarrassment. “She’s definitely lustful.”

Alfred tried not to laugh. “I am sure she would not contradict you.”

“I kinda thought they were a couple when I first came here,” Dinah admitted.

“In a way, they are,” he allowed, “but not in the way Miss Helena would like.”

“And Barbara?”

Alfred paused, considering his words. “She does not understand.”

“How Helena feels about her?”

He shook his head. “No, somewhere within her, somewhere she does not wish to explore, she has always known what Miss Helena feels. She does not understand what she feels for Miss Helena. She does not accept that which she cannot rationalise or categorise.”

Dinah seemed to think about that for a few moments. “They’ve gone very quiet,” she noted. 

“That won’t last.”

“Should we check on them?”

He winced. “That would be most unwise.”

Dinah looked at him questioningly. “Why?”

“They may be indisposed.”

“You don’t mean they’re…”

And then Alfred began to recount a summarised version of the previous eight years: Helena’s abiding love; Barbara’s inability to see Helena as an adult; the flirting; the misunderstandings; the jealousy; Barbara finally hearing that Helena was gay. “And, after that, things changed again,” he explained. “At first, I found it difficult to pinpoint what the shift was, but during my duties one morning, I came upon Miss Helena and Miss Barbara asleep together, naked. Since then, I have, well,” he looked away, “seen and heard certain things. Certain unmistakeable things.”

“Wait, I’m confused. So they are together?”

“I rather think they are very much not together and that these incidents,” he knew of five instances over the previous year, although he supposed there may have been more, “are aberrations on Miss Barbara’s part. The tension builds until it breaks and, when it breaks, it is usually best to leave them for a day or two.” He shook his head. “Sadly, I think this hurts Miss Helena more than just being ignored ever did.” Unusually, he had not been taken into Helena’s confidence on this. From that fact alone, he had concluded that the young woman thought of these nights with either pain or shame. After each occasion, she would not return to the Clocktower for several days, processing in her own way, regaining her equilibrium.

“So, why does she let it happen?”

“Because she can’t not. She could no more deny Miss Barbara than she could deny her own existence.”

“That’s terrible. How can Barbara treat her like that?”

“Miss Barbara loves her like she loves no other. She does not want to hurt her. I believe she feels that all they can ever have is occasional physical comfort.” He wasn’t entirely certain that comfort was the correct term given the animalistic noises he had heard from both Miss Helena and Miss Barbara. 

Dinah pushed her ice-cream around the bowl. “Is it because Helena’s a woman?”

“No, but that fact led her to ignore Miss Helena’s true feelings for many years. I believe it allowed her to write it off as hero-worship. She still thinks Miss Helena should be with someone her own age, someone not in a wheelchair, someone who is not involved in all this. She also, I suspect, does not believe that a woman such as Miss Helena could ever be satisfied with a life with her.”

“That’s just stupid. Helena doesn’t want anyone else! No-one else even exists for her.”

“Indeed.” He wondered just how strong the feelings Helena shared with her truly were.

“So, what’s with Mr Brixton and Detective Reese?” Dinah had seen first-hand that Helena openly flirted with Jesse Reese, and that he was patently keen to pursue a relationship with her.

“Wade Brixton is who Miss Barbara thinks she should be interested in—a kind, rational man who can offer her a normal life. You’ll have to ask Miss Helena about Detective Reese, although I suspect it’s a mixture of being flattered by his genuine interest and wishing to make Miss Barbara jealous.”

“I don’t get this.” Dinah shook her head and pushed her ice-cream away, untouched.

Helena appeared in the doorway, a sheepish look on her face. 

“You told her?” she asked Alfred. He nodded. “And the recent stuff?” It was the first time she had acknowledged her sleepovers.

“Yes.” He heard a door slamming and saw Helena’s eyes shut for a moment.

“We’ve agreed to disagree,” she said, referring to the argument. “Again.”

She took a calming breath and walked over to the seated Dinah. “So, kid, what say we find a greasy spoon, get some burgers and I’ll tell you all about women?”

 

 

“See, this is why I love you so much,” Helena said around a mouthful of pie. “Did you bake this yourself?”

Alfred rolled his eyes. “Are you going to talk to me at any point?”

“We’re talking!”

He looked at her pointedly. She ate some more pie. 

“Miss Helena.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and pushed her chair back from the table. She folded her arms over her chest. “She thinks I should move out. Of my own home.”

After the Clocktower was destroyed and their lives were utterly decimated by Harley Quinn, Helena went to her father for the first time in her life and demanded that he pay for a new base of operations. He purchased and converted a warehouse near the harbour. At Helena’s behest, it was almost nothing like the Clocktower. Where their former home had been dark and brooding, just like Wayne Manor and the Bat Cave, the warehouse was open and airy, despite being more heavily fortified than most nuclear bases. The only thing they had retained was Delphi, Barbara’s beloved IT mainframe. Everything else was new, untainted by Wade’s murder.

There were two upper floors: one just for Barbara, with her living quarters and Delphi; the other divided into bedrooms for Helena and Dinah, although Dinah mostly lived on campus at New Gotham University, where she was a freshman. Helena had given up her apartment over the Dark Horse bar and lived there full time.

“Did she say why?” he asked.

“I need my own life again. Apparently, I can’t stay here looking after the ‘spinster cripple’ forever.” Alfred had no doubt that was a direct quote from Miss Barbara. “Like I’d ever leave her.”

Alfred laughed. No, Helena had always maintained her teenage promise; despite everything, she had never left Barbara, even when she had pretended to try and when Barbara had begged her to move on with her life.

“May I be frank?” he asked.

Helena furrowed her brow. “When are you ever not?”

“Far, far too often,” he admitted. “I have watched you both make so many mistakes, and ruin your lives through pride and stupidity and stubbornness. But even I must draw a line, Miss Helena. I simply will not stand for this!”

He realised that he had raised his voice and they both looked up, wondering if Barbara had overheard. There was no sound from upstairs, no indication that she might be hovering nearby.

“You have let her set the terms of your relationship for over ten years, and it has made neither of you happy,” he said in a lower tone. “It is well beyond time that you stop letting her push you around. You know that she is in love with you and you allow her to run from it by never confronting her.” He could see that Helena was about to object, the scowl on her face telegraphing her disagreement. “Don’t misunderstand, I understand why you don’t push the issue. I understand that you are afraid that she will spurn you again and you will lose the life that you have together. But faint heart never won fair maiden.”

Despite her obvious shock, Helena burst out laughing. “Faint heart never what?”

He ignored her and continued, “Miss Barbara is a wonderful woman, but she holds duty far too dear. She thinks she is doing what is best for both of you by not tying you to a ‘spinster cripple’, as she so eloquently put it. She wants you to be happy and fulfilled and she does not believe that you could ever be either of those things with her.”

“But I’m only ever happy when I’m with her.”

“Well, quite,” he agreed. “But you must make her understand that. For all her intelligence, she does not see that denying herself is not freeing you, but merely making two good people unhappy when all either wants is the other.”

“But what if she says no?”

“Then don’t let her!” Really, the whole situation was quite infuriating and he wasn’t getting any younger waiting for one or other of them to settle matters satisfactorily. “I had to watch your parents be miserable apart for almost twenty years, and they both believed that they were doing the right thing. I will not stand by mutely while the two people I love most spend another decade torturing each other. I know that you fear an early death.”

“I do not fear death.”

“I did not say that you did; I said that you fear an early death. What if you do die young? Do you wish to meet your fate without ever having given yourself a chance at true happiness? Do you want Miss Barbara to spend the rest of her life as your father spends his, mired in regret and recriminations?”

“She doesn’t even want me any more,” Helena said.

Their intermittent sexual liaisons had ended after Wade had been murdered and Barbara had come very close to murdering Harley Quinn, prevented only by Helena pleading with her.

Alfred explained, “That she will no longer sleep with you is not proof that she does not wish to.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“She feels guilty. She feels guilty that she allowed Master Wade to think they had a future together while all she really wanted was you. If she had been honest with herself and her feelings, he may still be alive. Similarly, she feels she was being unfair to you by allowing you no more than the occasional liaison when you could have been pursuing someone else who could offer you a full life and a relationship.” 

“She’s trying to be fair to me? You think I can ever be with anyone else now? She has ruined me for other women. She is all I can think about, all the time. She is my life!”

“Oh, good Lord, Miss Helena!”

“What?” she frowned at him.

“You can sit here with me brooding about how hard your life is, or you can actually man up and go do something about it.”

Helena laughed again. “Man up, huh?”

“That is the right term?”

“Yeah, yeah, it is, Alfred. It’s not that easy, though.”

“Why is it not? Do you love her?”

“Oh, God, you know that I do.” Helena’s head sank and she ran her fingers through her dark hair.

“You are in love with her?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe that she feels the same for you?”

“Yes.”

“And you wish to be with her?”

Helena looked up, her eyes filled with anguish. “Hell, Alfred, I want to marry her, if she’ll have me.”

“Is there some added layer of complexity that I am somehow missing, then?”

Helena considered this for a moment and then got up from the table. She walked through the open living area until she was standing below the balcony which led to Barbara’s quarters and shouted up, “Barbara Gordon, I am totally in love with you and you know that you belong to me, so get your ass down here right this minute and admit that you’re in love with me or, so help me God, I will come up there and force it out of you. Repeatedly.”

She returned to the kitchen with a triumphant grin and sat back down, forking another mouthful of pie. “Happy now?”

Alfred rolled his sleeves back down and started to fasten the cuffs. “It wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

“Eh. I’m not big on the planning. I have Red for that.”

He rose from the table. “In which case, I shall leave now.”

“You’re going?” The vulnerable look on her face betrayed that she was already second-guessing her bold actions of a few moments ago.

“Miss Barbara is either going to do as you asked, or she is going to murder you. Either way, I guarantee she is on her way down here now and I do not care to be here to witness whatever happens next.” He retrieved his overcoat and hat from the coat stand. “Now, give me a hug.”

“A hug?” 

He understood her reticence. He did not hug: a kindly hand, a well-placed word, perhaps. But he loved this young woman more than family, and he wanted her to know that. “Do not make me repeat myself.” 

Helena stood hesitantly and he pulled her to him briskly, patting her back fondly before he pushed her to arm’s length, so he could look her in the eye. 

“You are truly a lovely young woman, Helena Kyle, and I consider it my greatest honour to be a part of your life.”

Helena blushed. “Thanks.”

“And you will be fine. You are more than brave enough for both of you, and I suspect you may have to be, so remember everything I’ve said.”

“I’m not likely to forget the fair maiden thing,” she joked gruffly.

Alfred stepped back and turned towards the door which led to the secure exit in the basement. He tipped his hat to Miss Helena and left.

As he started down the stairs, he heard Miss Barbara enter the kitchen, demanding, “What the hell did you just say to me?”

He smiled to himself when Miss Helena confidently replied, “I said that you’re mine and that you’re in love with me. Now, start telling me all the reasons why this won’t work so I can dismiss them with my awesome reasoning and then we can get to the hot, hot sex.”

He moved down the stairs towards the security gate in the confident knowledge that, one way or the other, things would be settled between them finally. He had a good feeling, though. No two people who loved each other so much were destined to be apart.

 

#### Epilogue: Helena’s birthday

“No fair! Alfred, she’s eating my cake!” Helena wailed, pointing at Dinah.

“That is what it’s there for,” he replied evenly. Dinah ignored the tantrum and continued to eat the chocolate cake in front of her.

“But it’s mine!”

“And you’re a big girl who needs to learn to share.” Twenty-five years old and yet still not a day over twelve, he thought.

“Oh, you know I don’t share,” Helena chuckled, flashing a lascivious grin in Barbara’s direction. The older woman flushed a most becoming shade of red. “Tell her I don’t share, baby,” she crooned.

“Helena,” Barbara admonished, but there was no force behind it.

Helena climbed into her girlfriend’s lap and nonchalantly kissed her soundly and thoroughly. Neither Alfred nor Dinah bothered to look away. They had seen much more explicit displays and were well used to it. The only shocking thing was that Barbara never seemed to object. Having accepted their love for each other, Barbara had developed quite the fondness for public displays of affection. In truth, with Helena for a partner, it was hardly a matter left to choice, as Helena took what she wanted, when she wanted, and cared not for who might be around to see or hear. Alfred had, for the first time in his long career, taken to announcing his arrival each day, having found them naked and spent together in the public areas more times than he could count.

“I don’t share,” Helena repeated, pulling back from her kiss to rest her forehead against Barbara’s.

“Cake is different, Hel,” Barbara murmured, rubbing her nose against the younger woman’s. “You have to share your cake with your family.”

Alfred couldn’t see where Barbara’s hands were, but from the soft purring he could hear from Helena, he suspected that there was skin-to-skin contact involved.

“Do I get a reward for sharing?” Helena asked. Barbara leaned in and whispered something into Helena’s ear, which caused another, much lower sound to emerge from her. “Yeah?” Helena’s eyes shone with love and happiness.

Barbara nodded shyly, glancing to Alfred and Dinah. “Later.”

“Now,” Helena countered.

“Later, or not at all.”

“You don’t mean that. You can’t resist me.” Helena got up from her partner’s lap and stretched to her full height, raising her arms above her head. Alfred saw that Miss Barbara watched this display with a mixture of love, desire and pride.

“No, I can’t, but you need to learn self-control.”

“That’s not what you said last night. Or this morning.”

“I might throw my cake back up,” Dinah teased, earning her a scowl from Helena.

“Jealousy gets you nowhere, Kid.” Helena reached her hand out to Barbara, who took it and squeezed it gently. “But you’ll find the right boy or girl one day. Or maybe you’ll finally let Gabby get lucky.” Helena winked. Gabby was Dinah’s best friend from high school, and openly gay. Helena always teased Dinah about their friendship being more than platonic.

“I’m not even gonna respond to that,” Dinah said. “I’m just going to keep eating your lovely, lovely birthday cake.”

“Don’t push it, Big D. I only have so much patience.”

Barbara raised their linked hands to her lips, kissing Helena’s knuckles. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you have a lot of patience when you really need it.”

Helena grinned. “Only for you, baby. Only for you and only when you do that thing with your—”

“Miss Helena!” Alfred interrupted, not wishing to hear the end of that particular thought.

Helena sighed dramatically. “What do I have to do to get some respect around here? You people should be a lot nicer to me, you know. One, it’s my birthday and, two, I’m sleeping with the boss.”

Barbara made a choking noise, but Dinah merely replied, “There’s not a lot of sleeping going on from what I hear. Or from what half of New Gotham can hear, in fact.”

“Dinah!” Barbara gasped.

“Aww, come on, Red. She’s not wrong,” Helena said. “We do have an awful lot of sex. And you’re not exactly quiet.”

“Helena, how dare you!” Barbara Gordon was actually flustered. It was such an unusual occurrence that it took Alfred a moment to recognise it.

Helena pouted. “I hope you’re not going to treat me like this when we’re married.”

“Married?!”

Alfred suppressed a laugh at Miss Barbara’s look of both stunned outrage and delight at the suggestion.

“Well, I just assumed that’s where we were headed,” Helena said, a slightly puzzled look on her face. “Do you mean you don’t want to marry me?” There was no accusation in the question; Helena seemed genuinely perturbed that Barbara was not thinking the same way.

Alfred gave up pretending to be doing anything other than enjoying the confrontation. He leaned against the counter, his arms folded. Dinah had also stopped eating her cake and was sitting back in her chair, waiting to see what Barbara would say or do next.

“Well, I mean, I hadn’t thought… It’s so… What we have is so new and we’re…” She stopped and took a breath. “You really want to marry me?”

Helena knelt down in front of Barbara’s wheelchair so that she could look her girlfriend straight in the eye. “Since I was fifteen years old, Red.” She rested her forearms on the arms of the wheelchair and leaned closer. “And every day since.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Barbara lifted her hand to cup Helena’s cheek, rubbing her thumb across the soft skin.

“I would go to City Hall today and take out a licence.” Helena’s sincerity was written all over her face.

Alfred moved to stand behind Dinah, who looked up at him with a knowing grin. While neither of them had suspected that this would happen so soon, they both knew that it would happen at some point.

“You would?” It was a rare moment to see the normally guarded Barbara Gordon display her emotions so openly, but the bright tears of joy at the corners of her eyes were unmistakeable.

“God, yes. How can you not know that? You’re my whole world, Red, and I want to be yours forever.” She reached out and wiped the tears gently from Barbara’s face. She smiled and stood up. “But we can discuss this later when the old guy and the kid aren’t here.” 

Helena had spent so many years having to second-guess Barbara’s feelings, Alfred knew, and she wouldn’t push her girlfriend into anything in front of an audience. She composed herself and gave one of her best predatory smiles. “And you already promised me special reward treats later, and I definitely intend to hold you to that promise.”

Alfred watched Miss Barbara processing everything she had heard. Her eyes darted left and right, no doubt weighing up options and possible scenarios. Her fingers rested on her own cheek where Helena’s thumb had brushed away her tears. 

“No,” she finally said. 

Helena’s whole body tightened, the fear causing her answer to come out in a hoarse, low tone. “No?”

“No,” Barbara repeated. “We will not discuss it later.”

“Oh, well, fine. We won’t. No big.” Helena folded her arms across her chest and tried to affect an air of nonchalance. Alfred and Dinah shared a look of fond disbelief. She was fooling no-one with her insouciance.

Barbara rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, hush up, woman! We’re not going to discuss this later because we’re going to discuss it now. Here. On your birthday. With our family here.”

Helena narrowed her eyes, still not really trusting her instincts about what was happening. She waited for Barbara to continue.

Barbara ran her fingers shakily through her hair. “Okay, so I hadn’t thought about it before, which is kinda stupid, really, because I like to think that I’m always prepared for every situation. And I should have thought ahead because, well, it’s not like this thing that we have isn’t something that I have wanted for the longest time. And marriage is an obvious final step in a serious relationship. And I do think of our relationship as serious. Very serious. The most serious and important relationship I’ve ever had. And I love you so much that I can’t even explain it, so I should really have thought about it, but I guess I’ve just been so caught up in enjoying what we do have.”

Alfred smiled at Miss Barbara’s discomfort. She was quite adorable when she was flustered.

“Anyway, what I’m saying is that I am in love with you, Helena Kyle, and I very much want to marry you one day.”

Alfred and DInah switched their attention to Helena, who was grinning widely.

“Is that a proposal, Barbara Gordon?”

This time it was Barbara displaying fear and panic. “Well, uh, I don’t have a ring, so it’s, um…” She winced, for once not knowing what to say. “I know, how about a rain check?”

Helena threw her head back and laughed. “At no point have we ever done things in the traditional way, but suddenly you feel the need to stick by tradition?” Barbara just smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Helena waggled her eyebrows. “Hold that thought, Red.”

Everyone’s heads turned as Helena ran from the room. They listened to the sound of boots on metal as she sprinted up two flights of stairs. No-one spoke, but Alfred and Dinah watched Barbara carefully. She was breathing in and out deliberately, trying to keep herself calm. Soon, they heard Helena jumping down from the balcony and landing with her usual cat-like grace.

Confidently, Helena strode back over to Barbara, one hand behind her back. She dropped to one knee and reached for Barbara’s hand, taking it between both of her own, rubbing her thumbs across the other woman’s palm. “So, this wasn’t exactly planned and I was going to wait for the right moment, but, hell, none of us is getting any younger, especially Alfred.” She flashed him a quick grin. 

Pulling the other hand from behind her back and opening it to reveal a ring box, she said, “I’m not so good with the words, so I’m gonna keep this simple. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, so, Barbara Gordon, will you marry me?”

Barbara removed her hand from Helena’s and opened the box. She held it up so that Alfred and Dinah could see a very traditional white gold or possibly platinum band with three diamonds, set in a row. She looked at Helena, a question in her eyes.

“It was my mother’s,” she said, “but I had it resized for you.”

Barbara removed the ring from the box and handed it to her girlfriend. She then extended her left hand, her ring finger raised expectantly.

“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse with tears. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

Grinning, Helena slipped the ring onto Barbara’s finger and then raised it to her lips, kissing where the ring lay.

“I am gonna love you so good, Red,” Helena vowed.

“You already do, sweetheart.” Barbara pulled Helena towards her for a passionate kiss which lasted just long enough for Alfred to feel embarrassed and Dinah to look away with a slight wince.

When the happy couple pulled apart again, both Dinah and Alfred rushed towards them, enveloping them in hugs and good wishes.

Unobtrusively, Alfred slipped away from them and made his way to the butler’s pantry, which was really just a small cupboard off the kitchen. There, he had been storing a bottle of Lafitte which he had ‘liberated’ from Master Bruce’s personal wine cellar at Wayne Manor. 

As he returned to the kitchen, he surveyed the scene before him—Miss Barbara kissing Miss Helena almost constantly as Miss Helena tried to talk to Miss Dinah—and he felt very satisfied with his lot.

Finally, all was right with his world. 


End file.
